Tennessee Football: Vols Should Hire Chris Beatty
By Zach Ragan
The Tennessee Vols still need to hire a wide receivers coach.
The top option to be the Tennessee Vols’ next wide receivers coach is South Carolina interim offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon.
Recently hired Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt coached with McClendon at Georgia in 2014-15.
But it appears that McClendon is on the path to being an offensive coordinator, so he might not be inclined to take another job as a position coach.
That’s why I think Chris Beatty is someone the Volunteers should look into hiring.
Beatty is currently the wide receivers coach at Maryland. He’s also been a wide receivers/running backs coach at Virginia, Wisconsin (he took over for Zach Azzanni in 2013), Vanderbilt (under James Franklin), and West Virginia.
He was also the co-offensive coordinator at Illinois in 2012.
Beatty doesn’t have a direct connection to Jeremy Pruitt, but he played college football at East Tennessee State from 1991-94. So he does have a geographical connective to East Tennessee.
Like Pruitt, Beatty stared his coaching career in the high school ranks.
Beatty coached Percy Harvin, who won two national championships at Florida, at Landstown High School.
Among the other names Beatty has coached are Noel Devine, Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey, Jordan Matthews and Jared Abbrederis.
Beatty has a reputation for being an excellent recruiter, and he has great connections in the Virginia/Washington D.C. area.
(It certainly wouldn’t hurt for the Vols to have some good recruiting connections in that area.)
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I think Beatty would be a very gettable option for the Volunteers if it doesn’t work out with McClendon. He’d also be a tremendous hire.